dota-2
I've played a bit of LOL here and there but not a lot, never any HoN or dota and was wondering if people could recommend any champions for my first few dota2 games.
Its hard to set in step in to a game with so many options.
If it helps, on LoL I often play as Caitlyn, Cho'Gath, Karthus, Ryze or Tristana.
also, if people want to comment any tips that have for the change over they would be more then welcome.
There are three types of damage numbers shown: Strong physical attacks, strong spells and damage ticks. Both physical and magical attacks displays the "after calculation" values, but the damage ticks displays "before calculation" values. If I have missed any kind of damage, please post in comments so I can test it and add to this answer.
When strong physical attacks are applied on a target, normally because of a Critical Strike happening, a damage is shown on the target of the damage. The number is the post calculation value, as proved by the following screenshot.
When strong magical damage is applied on a target, specially Lion's and Lina's ult, a damage is shown on the target of the spell. The number is the post calculation value, as proved by the following screenshot.
No donkeys were harmed in the making of this answer.
Damage ticks are a whole different matter. There are spells like Venomancer's Poison Sting which deal damage per second or over time. For each damage tick, a damage number is shown on the affected hero. However, this number is before any calculation. If a hero is affected with a level 4 Poison Sting, "20" will be shown on the hero's head every damage tick. We can see that this is true by the next screenshot. Skeleton King has a 25% magic resistance. "20" is shown above his head. In the combat log, he received 15 damage.
DamageReceived = 20 * 0.75 = 15
For a solo lane, you want a hero that's somewhat level dependent, as they'll be getting a lot of experience. This could be someone like an Invoker, Leshrac, or Night Stalker. If this lane is solo mid, ideally they'll also be able to utilize runes well to gank, because they'll have the easiest access to them.
As yx. sort of pointed out, it's much harder to gank through the opponent's jungle than through your own, making the "safe" or "short" lane the one alongside your own jungle. This is typically where a hard carry hero who needs a LOT of items like Anti-Mage or Faceless Void will lane. However, melee heroes in lane are subject to a lot of harass so they'll almost definitely be paired with one or two support heroes like a Dazzle or Crystal Maiden, who will earn a small bit of gold for themselves and maintain lane equilibrium by pulling neutral creeps.
Conversely, the "offlane" or "long" lane is often against multiple opponents and is easy to gank, so you'll want someone there who has a natural escape mechanism ability, like a Windrunner, Puck, Dark Seer, or Mirana, all of whom can be productive just with levels and not much gold, which is exactly what they're likely to be getting in a "suicide" solo lane.
A hard carry is a hero who in lategame with a decent amount of items will be able to deal large amounts of auto-attack damage quickly. They usually have abilities that will make an item on them stronger than the same item on another hero. For example: Gyrocoptor's Flak Cannon, Juggernaut's Critical Strike, and Weaver's Geminate Attack all grant extra damage. These heroes usually have large AGI growth per level or are AGI heroes, which allows them to gain high attack damage, attack speed, and armor from the same attribute.
Some hard carries are also increasingly powerful into the game because they are able to farm at far faster speeds than other carries can match. They have good base stats and/or good mobility and thus can hit a "lategame damage" stage faster than typical carries. Some examples include Anti-Mage, Shadowfiend, and Naga Siren. In addition, there are some unusual hard carry heroes like Spectre, Morphling, and Obsidian Destroyer are able to do so through unorthodox abiltiies. I wouldn't worry too much about that.
The terms aren't very uniform, but "soft carry" or "semi carry" usually refers to heroes that do better with items than the majority of heroes, but not as good as a hard carry. Examples of these might be Windrunner, Mirana, and Stormspirit. While they can potentially carry if they have a good enough early and midgame, with an equal amount of gold in items they are expected to be weaker than a hard carry. They make up for this by having a stronger laning phase/earlygame and having stronger abilities.
Finally, a term that's gaining more traction recently is "midgame carry" for heroes like Razor, Necrolyte, and Krobelus. These heroes deal a majority of damage from their abilities, not from their items, and so they peak in terms of effectiveness when these abilities are maxed, usually somewhere between levels 11 and 16. This is much earlier than a typical carry who just gets better and better as he gains levels. However, they are still fully capable of ending a game in this window of time if left unchecked.
Hope that helps. -.-
Best Answer
To start off, I suggest taking a look at this list that ranks each and every Dota hero by "difficulty" to play, based on six main areas of Dota "knowledge":
I would say that this list is a nice guide to reference if you are looking for heroes to play based on your various areas of familiarity with the game (for example, you can sort heroes by their map awareness rating if you think you aren't very good at it).
In general, heroes with an escape mechanism, a stun or disable of some sort, and aren't very farm dependent make for the easiest heroes to pick up and play in my opinion. These heroes tend to usually be Intelligence heroes and often play a support role, although there are some exceptions.
Some examples:
By no means would I say that these are necessarily the best heroes, but picking them up and learning how to play them correctly lets you familiarize yourself with other aspects of the game, and make the transition to more intermediate and advanced heroes easier later along the road.
As a final note, the heroes I listed above are considered EASY TO PLAY but are not necessarily EASY TO MASTER. All have some sort of slow or stun in their skillset, allowing you to stay relatively safe throughout games. These are heroes that allow you to work on fundamentals without worrying too much about things like "what playing a support means", or "how to be good at last hitting" or "what items you should buy". There are optimal ways of playing each of these heroes (which you are unlikely to do when first starting off on DOTA), but these heroes' skills put less of an emphasis on that, and allows you to be immediately useful to your team.